I Say It's Up to Fate
by Jael K
Summary: After the events in "(I Don't Believe in) Destiny," Constantine is back and moping. Sara and Leonard decide to do something about that. (A one-shot sequel to "(I Don't Believe in) Destiny." CaptainCanaryBlazer.)


**Author's Note**: This is a sequel to "(I Don't Believe in) Destiny," taking place about a week after the end events of that story. However, I believe it stands alone if you don't want to read that. (Or just want to read this first.)

My heart belongs to CaptainCanary, but after a certain exchange in IDBID, a number of people challenged me to write a Sara/Leonard/Constantine story (which I'm dubbing CaptainCanaryBlazer for lack of a better term). This is that story. I truly hope you enjoy it!

* * *

The ship is quiet.

Sara lets out a long, satisfied breath, slumping back into the captain's chair. As much as she loves her team, her crew, it does sometimes get…rather busy, here, so often.

But. Nate and Ray and Nora are all still back at the Vanishing Point at the moment. Zari and Charlie have headed out into the city, and Sara's sure enough that it's effectively their first date, something that makes her smile. And Gideon had decided she wanted to see Central City herself, to try out her human guise, but when Sara had proved reluctant to let her go on her own, Mick had grunted, cast a glance at Sara (and Len, leaning against the wall nearby) and offered to go with her.

She owes him something for that, she decides, getting up and stretching. What she and Leonard have may not be Mick's sort of relationship, but he's doing his best with it, and she's doing her own best to _get_ what Mick and Len have, and it works.

And now, for the first time since the whole Oculus drama, she'd rather like to get laid without having to worry about someone rapping on the door and yelling for the captain.

As if he's been summoned by the thought, Leonard appears in the doorway to the bridge. He pauses as he sees Sara there, then smirks, strolling toward her, clearly with the same thing in mind she has. Sara smirks back, running her fingers down the arm of the chair, then stands, taking a step toward him.

"Alone at last." Her crook lifts an eyebrow at her. "All the children are out to play until tomorrow. Whatever shall we do with our time?"

Sara takes another step. "Oh," she purrs. "I think we'll think of somethi…"

Which—of course—is when a bellow echoes through the Waverider's corridors, drawing both their attention.

Sara lets out a hefty sigh right as John Constantine strolls on to the bridge, a bottle swinging from his hand, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

"And I am _back_," the warlock announces with a flourish, saluting them both with the bottle, in which an amber liquid sloshes. "Miss me?"

The booze, Sara thinks, isn't the only thing getting a bit sloshed. "John," she acknowledges with another sigh, giving Len a _look_ and turning toward the other man. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." He winks at her. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Leonard snorts. Sara sighs. Again. "Well, I don't know?" she asks, putting her hands on her hips. "But you've been gone a week, and you seem to be three sheets to the wind, and…where's Gary?"

"No worries. He's back with his own ilk, at the bureau. Had him drop me off here." John perches on the edge of a jumpseat and smirks at her. He turns his attention, such as it is, to Leonard. "Ah, handsome. You'll be pleased to know that your little—time adventure—didn't do any harm to things. The…" He takes a slug directly from the bottle. "…walls 'tween here and there—whatever _here_ and _there_ may be—are still intact. Huzzah."

Leonard retorts, amusement in his voice, but Sara's chasing down something else. "You just…ran off on him again? John, you know that man's kind of besotted with you, right?"

John takes another healthy swig from the bottle. "Oh, darlin', y'know I'm a love-em-leave-em kinda bloke." A shadow crosses his face, and he takes another drink. "It's better that way."

Oh. They're going there again, huh? Sara fixes him with a glare. "John. What happened?"

"Nothing, love." Another drink. "Nothing. Kinda the point, ain't it?"

Then he blinks, looking up and back and forth between Sara and Leonard. "Ah. Interrupted something, did I? I can…" He gets to his feet, weaves a little. "Leave. Far be it from me to stay in the way of people who…might actually be…making something work…"

It's the brittle kind of self-deprecating that Sara knows well…and that actually worries her when it comes to John, who's seen far too many people come and go—many permanently, many violently—in his life. But before she can even glance at Leonard, the crook speaks up, tone pointed.

"Don't be stupid," he says sharply, folding his arms and staring at Constantine. "But if we're gonna drink, it's gotta be something better than that crap. I have standards." He glances at Sara. "There's a few bottles left of Rip's old stash, right?"

There are, and he knows it, because Sara has shown him. She's been saving it for a rainy day, or some sort of occasion, but…

Oh, this will do.

"Yep," she confirms, giving Leonard another significant glance. "Come help me carry it."

John subsides back into his seat with a grumble as Sara turns for the door, Len following her, but at least he doesn't seem inclined to go anywhere.

She waits until they're out of earshot and even then, lowers her voice to speak to him.

"Thank you. If we told him to leave right now," Sara says in a low voice, "I think he might do something really stupid. Even for John." She glances at Leonard. "He…gets like this sometimes."

Her lover nods. "Self-destructive," he says quietly as they reach the captain's quarters. "I get it." A pause. "You take care of your crew."

"Yeah." She retrieves the scotch from its hidey hole, handing him two bottles, then sighs, studying him.

"I love you," she murmurs, still pleased with her ability to say it, and how true it is.

Leonard smirks at her. "I know."

* * *

Sara still halfway expects John to have vanished again by the time they return to the bridge, but the warlock is still there, staying morosely at nothing, bottle swinging from his fingertips. He brightens when he sees their burden, pouts when Sara won't simply give him a bottle, shrugs philosophically when Leonard takes the rotgut he'd been drinking and drops it fastidiously in a waste bin, and happily accepts a glass of the scotch, taking a long drink and leaning backward.

"Ah. Now that's the stuff," he says with a sigh, waving the glass at Leonard. "You've got good taste indeed, handsome."

"Yes," Sara tells him drily, taking a seat herself, glass in hand. "He does." She watches as Leonard drops into a nearby seat, hooking one foot over his opposite knee and slouching in that attractively boneless way he has, then looks back at John.

"Now," she says, taking a drink herself, and staring him down, "what's got you in this state?" She points at him. "And don't go all mysterious and broody again. You know I don't fall for that crap."

John's quiet another moment, but then that same self-deprecating smirk touches his mouth again, and he shrugs.

"Oh, you know," he says, a lightness in his tone that Sara knows isn't really lightness at all. "Sometimes you look back through…things…and you don't care for what you see." He drains half his glass in one go. "Regrets. Stupid mistakes. _Big_ stupid mistakes, the kind that get people dead or worse." He finishes the rest of the glass abruptly. "Lost loves. Y'know."

Ah. "You were skipping around through time, checking things out via Gary's time courier, and you couldn't resist a little self-flagellation," Sara translates. She's suddenly tempted to drain her glass too but resists. "Desmond?"

"Among others."

His voice is very low. Sara looks at Leonard, who's frowning at John, but not in a way that suggests he's annoyed. She knows Mick had filled him in on the goings-on over the last few years, but how much detail, she's not sure. She herself has told him more about John, to some extent, but she's not sure exactly what he's thinking.

"You saved him," she says, getting up and moving over to refill John's glass for him. "You did that."

He toasts her again, mockingly—although the mockery is certainly directed at himself. "In a way. And the reward?"

"He's not in Hell. He's alive."

"And married now." He smirks as Sara blinks at the word. "To a blond bloke, looks a lot like me actually. They're newlyweds. Quite sweet." He throws back a good deal of the scotch again and coughs. "Guess he moved on all right."

Sara takes another drink. "Well, that sucks," is all she can think of to say.

There's silence a long moment.

"So…what?" Leonard breaks in then, the slight harshness in his voice making Sara wonder idly if he wants to play this good cop/bad cop. "You don't want him to be happy 'cause it's not with _you_?" He gets up and refills his glass, too. "Doesn't sound like love to me."

John scowls at the crook, while Sara darts a warning glance at him. "Not so much that, handsome, as that it's hardly the first time," he says. "Reminders that other people get what you'll never dare have." He looks at Sara. "We've talked about this."

It's her turn to frown. "John…"

"Oh, I know, I know." He waves his (empty again) glass in the air. " 'Love makes us stronger,' and all that jazz. An' maybe it's even true." Then, yes, he goes there. "You've been luckier than most, though, Sara, no mistake." He glances at Leonard. "Because here you are."

It's true, and yet…Sara sucks in a breath, trying to hold her temper, thinking of all those she's lost, and not just romantically.

"You do recall," her crook drawls, however, cutting in, "that we've both _died_." He glances at Sara. "More or less. And Sara, more than once."

"And yet you're here now."

Is there a good way to respond to that? There's probably not a good way to respond to that.

Leonard gets them all another refill and it's silent again for a bit. At one point, Leonard takes off his black jacket and slings it over a chair, an action that gets a wolf whistle from John, which he ignores. The warlock follows suit, though, removing his battered trench coat and shoving up the sleeves of his shirt restlessly before subsiding back down into the jumpseat.

That reveals something Sara already knows about, although she sees Leonard's eyes sharpen as he studies the other man. They've all had a good bit of scotch by now, but he's no less observant than usual.

And John, for all he'd gotten a head start, notices Leonard's regard too.

"Noticing my war wounds, mate?" he says mock-casually, lifting an arm and regarding the small, round scars there with a critical eye. "I made a good ashtray as a kid. Certainly, my father thought so." He considers his arms, expression analytical. "No pity, please. Long time ago."

Leonard snorts. Then, a little to Sara's surprise, he shoves up his own sleeves, first one and then the other, exposing very similar scars and other, larger marks.

Sara, watching and drinking, notices John's eyes widen just a fraction before he conceals the reaction with a gulp of scotch.

"Your ol' man?" he asks quietly.

"Yep" is the drawled response. Leonard tilts his left forearm up to inspect the longer, twisted mark there, thick with scar tissue. "So was this. Broken beer bottle."

John makes a thoughtful noise. He undoes another button of his shirt and yanks the collar to the side, exposing a scar with the puckered look of a long-healed but very deep wound. "Same here."

Leonard looks like he's considering upping the ante, but he polishes off his drink first. To Sara's continued surprise and amusement, his fingers twitch toward the hem of his sweater, though he stops them.

"If you two are going to do the whole stripping-down-and-comparing-scars thing," she says before she can think better of it, "at least let me lower the lights, put on some music and get more scotch."

Two sets of eyes, blue and brown, flick her way, and Leonard's lips twitch, while John laughs out loud. He winks at Leonard, swirling the scotch around in his glass.

"It's not fair, though," he says in a commiserating tone. "_She's _already seen the both of us bare. She knows where all the scars are."

Sara coughs, although Leonard merely lifts an eyebrow in her general direction. There's nothing jealous in the look—he's not that type—but there _is_ curiosity.

"Yes, we've slept together…" she tells him with a sigh.

"Sleeping had nothin' to do with it, love."

"It was a while back," Sara continues, ignoring John. "Even before Ava…long before you returned." She gets herself a little more scotch. "It was a…friends-with-benefits thing. Once. It's not that kind of relationship."

"Sara, you break my heart," John announces grandiosely, the sheer drama in his tone showing that she's doing nothing of the sort. He looks through his lashes at her and waves a hand at Leonard. "I don't think it's fair that you have the advantage of both of us, though."

Sara eyes him. "Pardon?"

"You've gotten to kiss both of us." John beams at her, then shrugs. "Well, more than that. But definitely that."

Sara's eyes dart sideways to Leonard, reading how he's reacting to John's teasing. To her relief, her lover looks amused and relaxed, none of the telltale tension in him that she knows would mean he's uncomfortable with this line of discussion. And maybe because of that, she says something else.

"Well, I won't stand in your way. If you want to even things up," she says, motioning with her glass. "But you've got to talk to Len about that."

John blinks at her. Then he glances at Leonard, who lifts an eyebrow.

"A kiss, huh?" the crook drawls, sitting his glass down and eyeing John in return. "I could handle that."

"Oh, _yeah_, you could handle this, handsome," John retorts, seeming somewhat dazed despite the flippant words. He glances at Sara as Leonard rises easily to his feet, then clears his throat and stands as well, though looking distinctively disbelieving in a rather un-John-like fashion.

Leonard, once committed anyway, has no such qualms. Sara watches as he saunters over to the other man, grabs that red tie, flicks the quickest glance and smile her way, and then hauls John's mouth to his.

_Damn_. Sara downs her scotch, unexpected desire stirring, feeling like a voyeur—but not in a bad way.

Leonard doesn't rush the kiss, and when he finally lets John go and steps back, the blond man staggers a little, staring at him open-mouthed. Leonard, who's looking a little ruffled himself, winks at Sara, but while he does take a few more steps back, he doesn't sit down again.

John takes a deep breath, shaking his head. "You," he tells Sara somewhat huskily, "are a lucky, lucky woman."

Sara clears her throat. "I am," she acknowledges, watching Leonard, a smile hovering on her lips, wondering if the _look_ he's giving her means what she thinks it means. She trusts him, and she trusts what they have, and…

Exactly as she'd somewhat expected, John's expression darkens as he looks back and forth between them then—more of that self-deprecating brittleness, the bleak loneliness that he keeps behind his façade of dissolute good humor.

"Outside looking in, again," he says in a low tone. "Ah, well. I'm glad for you, love." He picks up one of the bottles—one that's still mostly full—and salutes them. "I'm off. Hate being a third whe…"

"Oh, bloody hell," Sara says suddenly, fervently, getting to her feet and stalking toward him.

She grabs John's tie with one hand and grabs the front of Leonard's sweater with the other, going up on her toes, pulling first the former man toward her and kissing him hard. She hears a noise of surprise, tastes scotch and cinnamon and the faintest hint of mint, then pulls away (still holding his tie) and turns toward Leonard, yanking him toward her and kissing him too. The mint on his breath, familiar and reassuring, is mingled with the faint spice of cinnamon, and something about tasting the other in each man's kiss is one of the sexiest things Sara's ever encountered in her life.

When she relaxes her grip on Leonard, breaking the kiss, she meets his eyes, a question in her own. She's answered by understanding and amusement and desire together. He inclines his head, gaze never leaving hers, and Sara smirks, tightening her grip on each of them as she and Leonard both look at John, who's still looking rather stunned.

Then she starts towing them both down the corridor toward the captain's quarters, and then in, closing the door firmly behind them.

* * *

At some point during the night, John disentangles himself, gets up quietly and leaves. Sara, waking just enough to be aware of it, wonders groggily if she should check on him, but the low chuckle and the gentle kiss he presses to her forehead before departing lead her to decide that he'll be all right. She drifts back to sleep, listening to Leonard's steady breathing still beside her.

It's sometime in the very early morning that Sara wakes again, this time with a faint stirring of worry. She doesn't regret what they'd done, the three of them, but with a faint scotch haze hanging over her, she does hope she'd read Leonard right. What they have is still a little new, and if she'd misinterpreted…

And, honestly, she's always rather thought that Leonard tends toward guys the same way she tends toward girls. She's confident in their relationship, really she is, but John is charming, and handsome, and great in bed, and…

She rolls toward Leonard, noticing with a little surprise that he's awake and watching her. She hadn't heard the change in his breathing, for once.

"Hey," he says quietly, eyes on her, one hand reaching out to push a strand of hair out of her face.

"Hey." Sara bites her lip, watching him, then decides not to torture herself any longer. "We OK?"

Leonard lifts an eyebrow. Then, to Sara's great relief, he smiles.

"You think I'm going to fall for Trouble-with-a-capital-T there because of one admittedly enjoyable night?" he asks, amusement in his tone. "No. One, it'd be a little too much like…" He pauses. "Well. Let's just say I think we're a bit _too_ much alike."

"In some ways," Sara acknowledges, wrapping her fingers around his. "Not others."

"Hmmm. For another…" Those blue eyes, once so icy, now so warm, are focused on hers. "Sara. I was four years adrift in the timestream. The Time Force, to protect my mind, gave me dreams to keep me going. And most of them were of you." He pauses. "That, last night? That was fun. I like him—and we both know I don't like many people. Wouldn't mind a repeat, if circumstances were right."

His eyes darken, and he moves toward her, just a little, as she moves toward him. "This is something else."

And he kisses her, and Sara reaches for him again, and they're OK.

They're better than OK.

Later, they find John sitting in the galley, staring down into a mug of black coffee like it holds all the mysteries of the universe. His trench coat is still missing, and he's back in shirtsleeves, though looking rumpled as always.

He glances up at Sara and Len as they enter, a rather tentative expression on his face. Sara knows a moment of concern that she's gone and led her friend into falling for her love—and damn, did she really have to make life more complicated in _that_ particular way? But what'd happened, had happened, and it was done with. She doesn't regret it.

When he's close enough, Leonard holds out a hand and lets John's red silk tie slither from his fingers, allowing it to fall to the table, giving the other man a smirk when he blinks.

"You're lucky I didn't decide to keep it," he drawls, taking a seat and the cup of coffee Sara slides over to him. "As a souvenir."

Sara can't resist. "I was going to make him wear it this morning," she says, sitting down and sipping her own coffee. "And nothing else."

Leonard laughs. John blinks again then chuckles quietly. He takes a drink, then pauses, and Sara waits, watching him.

"Y'know, this probably ain't gonna be a regular thing," the warlock says finally, waggling a hand in the air as if to indicate the three of them. He pauses. "Or rather, a frequent thing."

Sara blinks at the words—actually fighting off a bit of unexpected disappointment-but John keeps going, the ghost of an odd, vulnerable sincerity in his expression, something she's very rarely seen.

"But I've gotta say…thanks for letting me in on it," he says quietly, looking back and forth between them. "Into what you have. What you've found. You give this ol' cynic hope."

Then he holds his mug up, familiar smirk appearing once again. "And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I'll deny it with alacrity. And _many_ lovely, lascivious details."

Sara laughs, holding her mug up too. "I think we can agree to keep this between us," she says, glancing at Leonard, who looks back at her, a gleam in his eye. "A nice memory. A _possibility_. A pact between…friends."

The three of them clink their mugs together in agreement.


End file.
